DAMASCUS, 21 July 2006 — After years spent edging Syrian troops out of Lebanon in a bid to win independence for the embattled nation, Western leaders now face the ironic prospect of convincing Damascus to reassert its influence there to halt militant rocket attacks on Israel and free Israeli prisoners.
As a consequence, the regime sees itself as back in the driver’s seat of regional politics after years of US-imposed diplomatic and economic sanctions, several Syrian politicians and analysts here said.
The leverage could allow Damascus to seek further advantage, including new talks on the fate of the Golan Heights, in exchange for any intervention in Lebanon.
Increasingly, the politicians and analysts added, Syria is following the model of its ally Iran, which in Damascus’ view has gained more control over its own destiny from a policy of defiance over its embattled nuclear program in the past year than moderate Arab regimes have won through years of concession and compromise with the US and Israel.
“The Iranians speak to the Americans with the same defiant attitude that the Americans address the Iranians with, and that has increased the popularity of (Iranian) President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threefold,” said Sami Mubayad, a Damascus-based political analyst.
“They’ve tamed the American attitude toward the Iranian regime — it’s not as aggressive or violent since Ahmadinejad came to power,” he added.
“So the Iranians have given Syria this advice: Don’t give in that easily. If you stand up for your rights, you will succeed in the end. And Syria is taking this advice.”
In the current crisis, during which US officials have called on Damascus to force its militant allies in Lebanon to back down from the conflict, Syria appears anxious to reassert its claim as a crucial guarantor of stability in the Middle East.
“There is a misconception in the policy that the United States has been following since the second war in Iraq. This misconception is that you can relegate Syria out of the politics of the area. That you can conduct your policies without Syria. We have seen now that this is wrong,” said Georges Jabbour, a lawmaker from Syria’s ruling Baath Party and an adviser to Hafez Assad, the late father and predecessor of President Bashar Assad.
In exchange for any attempt to end rocket attacks on Israel by militants of the Hamas and Hezbollah movements, Syria might be expected to ask for a final decision on the status of Syrian lands seized by Israel in 1967, along with guarantees that the US is not targeting the Bashar government for regime change, said M. Riad Abrash, a former liaison of the Syrian government on improving relations with the US.
“The Golan Heights is No. 1: The people of Syria want to know whether they will retrieve it or not.
And second, this regime wants to know whether it’s going to survive or not,” Abrash said. “It’s a matter of price. Syria wants something in return.”
Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria during the 1967 Middle East War.
While the US has pointed to Syria and Iran as possible behind-the-scenes instigators of rocket attacks against Israel, and possibly the only parties capable of convincing the militants to release three Israeli soldiers whose capture touched off the current crisis, Syria has taken pains to publicly distance itself from the Lebanese militants — if only to avoid direct accountability for the war. Analysts point out that Syria lost day-to-day control over Hezbollah when the last of its troops pulled out of Lebanon in 2005.
Syria saw that pullout as a painful blow to its rightful influence in the region and, from its perspective, prospects for future stability in Lebanon.
“We are out of Lebanon. How can we exert pressure?” said Abrash. “Just what does the United States want? Syria to play a role? Or to get out of all roles?”
Syria argues publicly that Hezbollah has become a largely independent force which in any case is now caught up in events beyond outside political control.
“If we imagine that Mr. Bashar gets on the phone to ask (Hezbollah leader Hassan) Nasrallah to stop, do you really think he will stop? We are dealing with a person who has decided to deliver his soul; do you think he’s waiting for comments from Damascus? Any thinking that the resistance in Lebanon or Palestine or Iraq is controlled by Syria is, I think, a stupid understanding,” said Mohammed Habash, an independent member of Parliament and director of the Islamic Studies Center in Damascus.
Yet while all of that may be true, few doubt that an unequivocal command from Syria, combined with a blockade of supply routes across the Lebanon border, could provide the means to halt the current round of violence on the Muslim side.
In any case Syria would be unlikely to move without a commitment to a cease-fire and the assurance of concessions, including prisoner releases, by the Israeli side, analysts said. This is especially true, they say, because war in Lebanon carries distinct political advantages for Damascus — as long as it doesn’t stretch across the border into Syria.
These advantages include the undermining of the current anti-Syrian government in Lebanon, an indefinite postponement of implementation of United Nations resolutions aimed at disarming Hezbollah, the reassertion of Syrian influence in a chaotic Lebanon and the postponement of democratic reforms at home.
Just how limited Washington is in its own communication channels with Syria was made clear Monday, when President Bush was overheard in conversation with British Prime Minister Tony Blair saying he felt like asking UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to telephone Syria and “make something happen” to end the crisis in Lebanon.
